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View Poll Results: Have you heard of this before?

Voters

753. You may not vote on this poll

Yes, I had heard of this issue before and I'm outraged!

45860.82%

Yes, I've heard of this before and frankly couldn't care less.

151.99%

No, this is the first time I've heard of this and I'm outraged!

24031.87%

No, this is the first time I've heard of this and frankly couldn't care less.

The points that you made in both your email and the phone call are really the heart of this issue, and even I have failed to realize that up until now. I can see that a whole lot of other discussions, even ones that I engaged in, were not really the core of this issue.

Your point about the Home Depot analogy is about as perfect and well explained as anything could be, it "hits the nail on the head".

That is THE core of our issue I think. Forget about permission from users, forget about user ages, forget about users being tricked to installing it - your analogy and issue still stands tallest regardless of how the other issues are judged.

Your comment about how surf+ is not gone but just underground was great since it doesn't sound like Jim or anybody else there seemed to realize that yet.

Also, your demonstration of how the invisible links are not leading consumers to "relevant" pages full of content that relates to the keyword clicked on was another fantastic point, showing how users are really being diverted to half-%ss promo search pages with minimal keyword relationships.

All in all, I think you should be the one invited to do talk shows for our cause from now on, because even on the GHF boards there are comments about how Jim really was beaten up during that talk show and how he failed to represent us in the heat of battle, but everything said about you was very positive!

All in all, I think you should be the one invited to do talk shows for our cause from now on

No, I'm no spokesperson. We have many, better qualified folks who can do that job. Dave, you've done several radio shows haven't you?

Folks, I'm just a logical kind of person; we don't need to create law here. We have laws against this practice and we have to leave the emotion at the keyboard and speak from logic, not emotion.

We can't take this argument to folks who can't get their head around this. It's simple, we need to explain in terms *everyone* can understand.

The brick and mortar store is just logical. Would you appreciate someone walking up to you in a store and telling you to go down the street? Would you appreciate someone coming up to you in McDonald's and enticing you to Burger King? Would McDonalds????

Folks can get their head around that and I haven't said one word about a website. I'm just thinking in terms of that 60 year old judge, who is terrified of that "computer thingamagiggy" and won't rule in matters he can't understand.

We have laws against this practice and we have to leave the emotion at the keyboard and speak from logic, not emotion.

I agree with that, but talk show hosts are tricky little devils sometimes and they seem to use their own "emotion" (without facts) to make the guests' facts seem crazy and false

But I agree with you, we need to lay out the facts for people to see in a clear and rational way.

Just as a side note for future radio shows done by other members in the future, I was thinking that a good analogy to give the talk show host, in the case of radio shows, would be to briefly explain it like this:

Guest talking to radio host:
________________
What if eZula started selling new radios, and struck a partnership deal to get these radios into all stores selling radios to the public. (To the point that a majority of the world could own these radios in a short time).

And these radios all had the technological ability to mask radio ads from every major radio station, and to switch all radio commericals "in real time" to eZula's advertisers of choice.

Then ask the radio show host if their station would consider this to be an acceptable form of using technology? And would they endorse this method of advertising?
_________________

I bet they would stall and not know what to say, especially if they were playing devils advocate and were supposed to be siding against the cause for the inteview.

Uh, oh, Uh, time for a commercial!

Because without the public hearing the ads, the radio station woud lose advertisers and they would be shut down.

There is supposed to be some new radio show in Seattle later this week I think. I am crossing my fingers that Jim does good in that interview, we need some more good press for the cause.

This software, commonly termed "scumware," installs itself without warning, and once operational it alters the way the victim views the World Wide Web.

Just my .02 cents, but I think that this definition needs work because I think our argument is that the warning given is "inaccurate". Saying that no warning is given is inaccurate I think, since they are told that "relevant quick links" are added to MSIE.

This software places links on every webpage the victim views. These links often lead to pornography and gambling sites.

I agree with the previous comment about reporting facts and not trying to focus on emotions, and this statement about porn and gambling sites is really not part of our core argument but is there to arouse the "emotions" of people.

If we go around touting our main argument as combatting "reputation-degrading links" to porn and gambling sites, then as soon as they cut off their porn and gambling site clients we would look somewhat foolish because we would have to change our argument and keep fighting since our goal really has nothing to do with ridding ourselves of unwanted porn and gambling site links, our goal is to rid ourselves of all unwanted links to any competitor or even non competitor.

I know you already said you are going to alter the site to make it simpler today, but I just wanted to make these suggestions.

Yes, every word, on every page, on every site is now an invisible link for Surf+.

Here's part of the view source from the page I was redirected to:
srcURL[0] = "http://www.filemix.net/cgi-bin/tz.cgi?run=fetch&u3=*http://208.186.202.50/xmlv3.asp?Q=enhance&CID=22053&R=1&QT=C&CK=999105340&IP=66.156.68.2";
srcURL[1] = "http://www.filemix.net/cgi-bin/tz.cgi?run=fetch&u3=*http://partners.mamma.com/SpediaP?query=enhance&rpp=200";
srcURL[2] = "http://www.filemix.net/cgi-bin/tz.cgi?run=fetch&u3=*http://partners.mygeek.com/search.jsp?partnerid=96045&format=xml3&query=enhance"

The partners are mamma.com and mygeek.com, they are tracking my IP and even though I clicked on the word "enhance" I was taken to www.900numbers.com from their page.

BTW, way back when this first started, I discovered a link to spedia and filemix. Even though the whois database had little information for filemix.net, the Admin Contact name and email for both of them was the same.

I think this invisible link thing makes matters worse, and may well give us an admission, i.e.:

The invisible link means they are getting pretty smart to our complaints. The invisible link means they are finding a way around the copyright issues; the are no longer defacing the content. Taking off the green may have shut us out of the "altering copyrighted materials" argument.

IMHO the copyright issue has always been a little iffy. I see the main problem being one of "unjust enrichment". In other words, by infecting my site, using my writtin words located on my site, they are doing harm to my ability to make a living, while all the time they are earning a profit.

IMHO the copyright issue has always been a little iffy. I see the main problem being one of "unjust enrichment". In other words, by infecting my site, using my writtin words located on my site, they are doing harm to my ability to make a living, while all the time they are earning a profit.

While I think we had an excellent claim on copyright issues, I agree that it has never been the strong point of our argument. As Dave says, Unfair Business Practices and Unfair Trade Practices are a much better argument. There's also the Latham Act - which in essence says a lot about "consumer confusion" which relates to someone intentionally confusing the consumer into thinking they are dealing with one company and are in actuality are dealing with another.

Now, all this is US law....the question is does US law even apply here? KaZaa is in Holland!!! Filemix.net appears to be operating out of the Caribbean....

So, let's ask our non-American friends...

In Australia, or England, or anywhere else in the world....

In a brick and mortar store, would your legal system allow someone to come in to your store and actively "solicit" your customers to go elsewhere? If not, why not?